Playing with men

I showed up an hour early. In my excitement about playing tennis, I misread the announcement and thought that we were meeting at 6pm. In fact, the meet-up was posted for 7pm. The sun was still brutally hot. The public courts were filling up fast. I stood there for a while wondering where everyone was.

Most of the courts were occupied by men. There was a smattering of women. A woman and a young girl who seemed to be her daughter struggled to hit the ball, the mother’s returns going sky-high and landing everywhere but in the court. The daughter’s balls were not a whole lot better. Another geriatric pair sat down after every single exchange of curvy slicing. If I was going to play tennis that day, it was going to be with one of the men. Except that I was a newcomer, a visitor to this city, responding to an internet announcement about a meet-up on the public courts, I knew no-one.

I think some people show that disappointment because so many people overate themselves. I think he started looking around during the warmup because he knew that he had a beatdown coming. It was like, "please guys hurry up, I ticked off this lady and she is going to beat my brains in." I was taught to scout in the warmup so I can easily tell the level of the persom I'm hitting with and adjust my game accordingly.

Great post tennischick! I can only imagine what you have to go thru every time you meet a new player. The underlying doubt that is there for these players is "what if she is good, then what?" Of course, some men don't like to play with women that can beat them despite the fact that it is a good matchup.

Have you ever thought about just saying, "I'm a 4.5, what are you"? or secretly you really like to watch the looks on their faces as they realize they're going to lose. :-)